The present invention relates to clothes drying and dewrinkling systems and more specifically to clothes drying and dewrinkling cabinets intended mainly for domestic use.
It is a proven fact that one of the most disagreeable household chores is the process that starts off when clean clothes (garments, sheets, etc.) are taken out of the washing machine and finishes when they are stowed away in the respective wardrobe duly ironed (hanging the washing taken out of the washing machine, bringing it in when dry, organizing the ironing thereof, etc.).
There have been many attempts to expedite and simplify this process, but no household domestic appliance has been developed to date offering a complete and final solution.
Clothes drying cabinets are well known, but they only offer a partial solution to the task that starts after the washing has been done, its main contribution being the speeding-up of the drying process. JP09313793, for instance, claims a booth for clothes drying by means of hot air.
Cabinets are also well known that set out to dewrinkle clothes and which use hot air and steam for this purpose. Thus EP0324589 discloses a cabinet for the steaming and subsequent drying of clothes for their dewrinkling. This cabinet only offers a partial solution to the process which begins after removing the clean clothes from the washing machine. Furthermore, the steaming and drying method claimed by EP0324589 requires the clothes to be dewrinkled to be stretched out inside the cabinet.
What is more, the steam diffusion means proposed by EP0324589 are of a complexity that may be avoided and at the same time optimal steaming cannot be assured.
Lastly, the size of the interior area of the EP0324589 cabinet is not the most suited either for the ends pursued (facilitating the operations that begin after the clothes are washed and conclude after their ironing), as said cabinet does not have sufficient capacity to hold the clothes corresponding to a wash.
The object of the invention is a cabinet for drying and dewrinkling clothes and a method for carrying out said drying and dewrinkling, as defined in the claims.
The user may put all the clean clothes (garments, sheets, etc.) taken out of the washing machine directly into the cabinet which is the object of the present invention, where the subsequent drying and dewrinkling of said clothes is carried out, besides acting also as a storage place for the clothes until they are transferred to their respective wardrobe. All this is no impediment either to the cabinet of the present invention being able to dewrinkle dry clothes or to its being used merely as a drying cabinet.
The level of dewrinkling that is achieved is such that the subsequent use of an iron is only required for a small number of garments and only for very localized parts thereof. Furthermore, it is not necessary to stretch out the clothes but merely to lay them on the racks provided in the actual cabinet.
The cabinet that is the object of the present invention has means to supply air and steam to its interior area and devices for the control of said means, at least one airing duct, and means for the opening and closing of said airing duct, also operated by way of said control devices.
The invention includes a method for dewrinkling clothes in the interior area of the cabinet, which comprises a steam supply stage, a clothes resting stage, and an air supply stage, the airing duct being either open or closed depending on the stage that the dewrinkling process has reached. For wet clothes there is an initial drying stage by means of the delivery of air.
The possibility of opening or closing the airing duct in accordance with the stage the dewrinkling process has reached enables the results to be optimised both at the drying and at the steaming and resting stages. In fact, it is this option of opening or closing the airing duct which makes it possible to combine the drying of wet clothes (clothes taken straight out of the washing machine) and their subsequent dewrinkling in the same cabinet.
Thus, at the initial drying stage (in the case of wet clothes) and at the drying stage after steaming, the airing duct will be kept open so that there is air circulation and moisture is drawn out either to the outside or else to a condensation system provided for this purpose at the output of said airing duct. At the steaming and resting stages, however, said airing duct will be kept closed. In this way, at the steaming stage this will help the clothes to be saturated in steam through preventing the steam from escaping to the exterior. Likewise, at the resting stage the fact of keeping the airing duct closed will assist in stabilising the clothes by preventing air currents to the exterior.
As regards the resting stage, the tests carried out have shown that the introduction of said stage after the steaming stage brings a considerable improvement in the dewrinkling results. In this way, the method of dewrinkling covered by the invention improves on those methods, like that claimed in EP0324589, which introduce the air delivery stage straight after the steaming stage.
Another important feature of the invention is that, as regards the steam supply methods, the steam diffuser is eliminated. The steam is supplied through a duct communicating the tank in which the steam is generated, which is located below the inner area of the cabinet, directly with said inner area. The steam may either be generated in this way or else by supplying air at the same time, so that said air assists in the even distribution of the steam. In this way, the steam supply means are simplified considerably and optimal results are obtained. This design, much simpler for instance than that proposed in EP0324589, makes volume production of the cabinet much more feasible.
On the other hand, a common problem in cabinets of this type is condensation. Tests performed have shown that the cabinet that is the object of the present invention gives no problems of this type. A factor that contributes to this is, together with the use of a thermally insulating material for the forming of the cabinet, the fact that the steam is supplied to the inner area by way of a duct that communicates the steam generating tank and said inner area directly, so that said steam does not undergo any loss of energy in reaching said inner area.